Corpo Real

Network Data Sonification (Audio visual concert version in 3 movements)
David Worrall (sonification), Udo Rink (visualization)

Corpo Real is an artistic exploration of some aspects of network data. It consists of three five-minute artistic Sound Image (Klang Bild) movements or snapshots that can be presented in concert form (video with stereo audio). They were created for the Art and Technology program at Fraunhofer IIS in 2014 and so exemplify an essentially artistic approach to sonification and visualization. The sonifications were made in the process of developing the realtime network monitoring tool, NetSon. This artistic-exploration-first approach was useful as it provided a greater opportunity to test the potential of the tools in their early development stages than a purely pragmatic approach would have. In order to design a real-time network-monitoring tool, it was necessary to understand the fluctuations in the rate of flow of the most data dense operations: the file servers during transfers and backups. A further motivation was that this was unknown to the network administrators. The sound is an accurate representation of events in the IIS network data. Pitch and time are used to represent the flow rate: the pitch rises and falls as the duration between network flow events increases and decreases; its melodic contour helps us to hear the structure of the temporal flow, which is being monitored at 100 times slower than real time. The accompanying image software is controlled by sound-rendering parameters which it receives from the sonification software in real-time in a simple UDP format. The animation contains two ring forms. The larger polygonal (green) form is chosen as one path through the network topography and the smaller, wandering rings expand and contract in relation to the intensity of the flow. The direction of this form is determined by the interaction of a set of complex rules.

The Fraunhofer IIS website has information about the public presentation of this project.
The Icad 2015 Netson paper details the working of Network data sonification.

View some YouTube videosOpens in a new window about NetSon and other sonification matters, including a general introduction to data sonificationOpens in a new window.

1. net-path-flow

This movement perceptualizes the rate of flow of data across the entire network. Pitch and time are used to represent the flow rate: The pitch rises and falls as the duration between network flow events increases and decreases: it's melodic nature thus helps us to hear the structure of the temporal flow, which is being monitored at 100 times slower than real-time.
The image contains two ring-forms. The larger polygonal form is chosen as one path through the network topography and the smaller, wandering rings expand and contract in relation to the intensity of the flow. The direction of this form is determined by the interaction of a set of complex rules.

net-path-flow youtube

2. in co-operation

This movement is the most abstract of the three. It is a sonification of the whole of the network at IIS sorted into various departments, sonified and visualized according to tone colour (klangfarbe) and spatial projection. The tight integration of the sound and image forms highlights the subtle interaction of these primary senses: Often the ear leads the eye, but sometimes the reverse is true.

in co-operation youtube

3. 3am chill

This movement is a perceptualization of the network traffic at 3am. At this time the majority of the traffic consists of the servers transferring existing data (here represented by a plucked string algorithm) with other less frequent traffic such as email. The aim is to represent the status of the network: "all-is-well", 'virus attack' etc. in real-time. On the evening of this recording, the servers are "humming along" in gentle equilibrium.
The green boxes and the various tone colours perceptualize the flowing data packets, projected in space according to their origins.

3am chill youtube

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